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1934 is the hottest year on record

What the science says...

Climate Myth...

1934 - hottest year on recordSteve McIntyre noticed a strange discontinuity in US temperature data, occurring around January 2000. McIntyre notified NASA which acknowledged the problem as an 'oversight' that would be fixed in the next data refresh. As a result, "The warmest year on US record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place." (Daily Tech).

The year 1934 was a very hot year in the United States, ranking fourth behind 2012, 2006, and 1998. However, global warming takes into account temperatures over the entire planet. The U.S.'s land area accounts for only 2% of the earth's total surface area. Despite the U.S. heat in 1934, the year was not so hot over the rest of the planet, and is barely holding onto a place in the hottest 50 years in the global rankings (today it ranks 49th).

Climate change skeptics like to point to 1934 in the U.S. as proof that recent hot years are not unusual. However, this is another example of "cherry-picking" a single fact that supports a claim, while ignoring the rest of the data. Globally, the ten hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with 2005 and 2010 as the hottest.

The fact that there were hot years in some parts of the world in the past is not an argument against climate change. There will always be regional temperature variations as well as variations from year to year. These happened in the past, and they will continue. The problem with climate change is that on average, when looking at the entire world, the long term trend shows an unmistakable increase in global surface temperatures, in a way that is likely to dramatically alter the planet.

Related Arguments

Comments

The graph cannot be right. 1934 is the hottest year, with 1998 second. The graph shows 2005 as hotter than 1998. The whole thing does not ring true, it looks manufactured to promote the alarmists assertions and to minimise the exposed errors.

Response: The graph is of global temperature. '1934 is the hottest year' applies to US temperature.

Also the graph here only goes back to the end of a 30 year cooling period. And establishes this as the zero point.

Response: The point of the graph is to show the miniscule difference before and after the "Y2K correction". The reason it only showed the last 30 years was because if you display an even longer period, the difference is even harder to detect. Here is the same data going back to 1880 (again courtesy of Tamino):

The difference between the temperature record before the Y2K correction (red dots) and after the correction (black diamonds) is insignificant anytime before 2000 and still barely noticeable after 2000. The change has had practically no detectable impact on the global warming trend over the past 30 years. As for the zero point, temperature anomaly graphs take an average over a specified period (eg - 1960 to 1990) - the temperature anomaly is the difference from this average. The period selected is arbitrary (GISS and CRU use different time periods) as the trend will be the same regardless.

The United States shows no warming trend but that doesn't matter because it's only 2% of the surface area of the Earth, correct?

While this is true, the concern here is that the US surface temperature records are regarded as the best in the world. If they show no warming trend, how reliable are the records of countries such as China where there has been massive urbanisation (thus increased heat from cities)? This is an open question. And a legitimate one.

It should also be pointed out that the land surface records we have don't show warming trends in South America or Africa or Antarctica.

I suppose the only thing we can get out of this is to consider that global warming is perhaps more regional and local in nature and impact than the term would have us assume. Or perhaps we should focus on other temperature measures as the land surface record may not be particularly accurate in and of itself.

A further observation: The seasonal Arctic ice melt is significant (based at least on the short observational records that we have) and it's been argued that it is strong evidence in support of global warming. Yet this area covers only 3% of the planet.

Could you please clarify why the 2% land mass of the United States has only an 'infinitesimal effect on global trends' yet the 3% land area of the Arctic is apparently significant 'concrete' proof? Wouldn't the way such information is selectively used or ignored, indicative of certain biases?

"The United States shows no warming trend but that doesn't matter because it's only 2% of the surface area of the Earth, correct?"
No. The U.S. definitely shows a warming trend. Look at the actual NASA correction:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/distro_LightUpstairs_70810.pdf
2000 is the hottest year in this graph. Also, although there is a bump in the 30's, the overall trend is clearly up.

All that aside, global statistics are clearly what matter for a global phenomenon.

If you look around a bit on this site you'll find plenty of references to well-averaged, peer-reviewed data (permafrost, deep ocean temps, etc.) from all over the globe showing warming that matches anthropogenic forcing.

Will Nitschke - "... the US surface temperature records are regarded as the best in the world."

Sheesh, some of you Americans have such a superiority complex! Many other nations have excellent temperature records. For example Australia. You can check out our climate statistics at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The temperature and rainfall trends down here are ugly and getting worse all the time.

Besides that, the temperature of the World's oceans is monitored by a multinational project called Argo. They do it with 3000 floats that alternately rise and sink through the top 2km of as they drift around the oceans.

Will Nitschke, you asked for an explanation as to why the "2% land mass of the United States has only an 'infinitesimal effect on global trends' yet the 3% land area of the Arctic is apparently significant 'concrete' proof?".

Your argument is a strawman. No one is claiming that what is happening in the Arctic alone is "significant 'concrete' proof". Your comparison would be fair only if those arguing that GW is happening are basing their arguments entirely on what is happening in the Arctic and no where else, but this is absolutely not true. What is happening in the Arctic, along with what is happening elsewhere around the globe is what is considered.

This post needs updating. USHCN v2 makes a slight adjustment upward in U.S. mean temperature over the last decade, which puts 2006 and 1998 above 1934. Almost nil implication as far as global warming goes, just like the previous adjustment, although one wonders what the spin from the global warming denial crowd will be this time...something like "NASA fabricates data to support hoax! Erases fact that 1934 was the warmest year on record!"

"Nov. 14, 2009: USHCN_V2 is now used rather than the older version 1. The only visible effect is a slight increase of the US trend after year 2000 due to the fact that NOAA extended the TOBS and other adjustment to those years. "

Also, if you look at the US-only graph, you see that after peaking in the 1930's & 1940's, temperatures fall off again (in line with the rapid rise in average sunspot numbers, followed by a sudden dip), but then start to rise again quite quickly-in spite of the fact that average sunspot numbers haven't risen again since the 1950's. Nor do average US temperatures show any sign of falling-as they did in the 1940's!

The hottest year in the U.S. was 1921. 1934 was second. The average temperature for the 48 contiguous states in 1921 was 55.6°F. To confirm this one can read the first paragraph of THE WEATHER OF 1940 IN THE UNITED STATES (W.W. Reed) or THE WEATHER OF 1942 IN THE UNITED STATES (J.L. Baldwin).
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/069/mwr-069-02-0049.pdf
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/070/mwr-070-12-0271.pdf
The average temperature in 1934 was 55.1°F. The original temperature measurements published each month for each state for those years by the U.S. Weather Bureau will add up correctly.

BTW... Two-thirds of the state record high temperatures in the U.S. were recorded before 1955. More than half were recorded from 1921-1934. None has been recorded since 2003. Yes, it is warming today, but it also did so during the first half of the last century... and at about the same rate.

Worth noting also, the first day a thermometer is in operation it'll record its first record high. Records will continue to smashed with decreasing frequency in that location. Same deal with a network of thermomeners covering an entire state; most record-breaking years will be found early in the history of the network.

I'm left surprised that a state record should be broken as late as 2003.

Here's a more sophisticated way of looking at the issue, looking at Meehle 2009.

Tom... Whew! Relieved to know that since the US is only 2% of the globe it doesn't matter. I believe you may have missed a point too... the NCDC-NOAA has systematically lowered the early Weather Bureau records. But since it doesn't matter anyway, its not a problem I guess.

Doug... These were not single-day records, but monthly records. The single-day records are, however, similar... 1895-2009, 40 states with record single-day extreme highs before 1955, only 8 extremes after 1975. It is curious that Meehle (your 'sophisticated' way to look at it) chose to look only at the records from 1950 onward. Might this be called sophisticated 'cherry-picking'? In choosing this period he ignored the 30 record states before 1950, 26 of which were set from 1921 to 1934. Furthermore, from 1954 to 1987 there were no state record highs broken at all... not one.

Broadlands, your sources are from 1941 and 1943 - a bit out of date now, don't you think ?

If you look at NewYorkJ's comment, you will find more up-to-date and accurate information. From one of the links there, you will find that 1998 was the 'hottest year' in the US, closely followed by 2006, then 1934, 1921, 1999.
If you don't trust those figures, that is up to you to explain. Perhaps you should show in what way you believe they have been fiddled somehow.

Also, you shouldn't concentrate on daily or monthly maximum temperatures, which are more likely to be the result of local weather - best to concentrate on trends, like this study :

I believe you may have missed a point too... the NCDC-NOAA has systematically lowered the early Weather Bureau records.

Heavily freighted words. I suppose you'd like us to form some conclusion? Why not say it, or is it more theatrical to leave a decaying, unresolved chord in the dramatic score?

These were not single-day records, but monthly records...

So what? Put a network of thermometers together, produce a monthly high and low averaged between stations and the same effect I mentioned will apply except more so: most unprecedented and subsequently unparalleled extremes will be found in the earlier history of the network. If there's an overall shift in surface temperature it'll take a while to show up in monthly state-wide records. There's nothing complicated about this.

I don't think you understand Meehle's paper, perhaps because you're looking at things through a conspiracy filter. Certainly your failure to understand the expected longitudinal distribution of extremes from a thermometer network suggests you're not very clear on the topic Meehle discusses. Try to be more objective, take the opportunity to learn from Meehle's expertise.

The year 2010 is now tied with 2007 as the year with the most national extreme heat records--fifteen. There has been one country that has recorded its coldest temperature on record in 2010; see my post last week for a list of the 2010 records. My source for extreme weather records is the excellent book Extreme Weather by Chris Burt. His new updates (not yet published) remove a number of old disputed records. Keep in mind that the matter of determining extreme records is very difficult, and it is often a judgment call as to whether an old record is reliable or not. For example, one of 2007's fifteen extreme hottest temperature records is for the U.S.--the 129°F recorded at Death Valley that year. Most weather record books list 1913 as the year the hottest temperature in the U.S. occurred, when Greenland Ranch in Death Valley hit 134°F. However, as explained in a recent Weatherwise article, that record is questionable, since it occurred during a sandstorm when hot sand may have wedged against the thermometer, artificially inflating the temperature. Mr. Burt's list of 225 countries with extreme heat records includes islands that are not independent countries, such as Puerto Rico and Greenland. Seventy four extreme hottest temperature records have been set in the past ten years (33% of all countries.) For comparison, 14 countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries). I thank Mr. Burt and weather record researchers Maximiliano Herrera and Howard Rainford for their assistance identifying this year's new extreme temperature records.Jeff Masters Weather Blog

JMurphy and Doug... OK. Here are some numbers. The first column shows weighted monthly temperatures for the 48 contiguous states (no Hawaii or Puerto Rico) derived from the original 1921 US Weather Bureau monthly reports... the Tables in the Condensed Climatological Summary. Example: http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/049/mwr-049-12-0684.pdf
The average temperature (°F) for each state is given in these official reports. Only the contiguous 48 are used. The second column gives the temperatures from the NCDC-NOAA 1895-2009 US database where, presumably, the same historical information is given for each state, each month. The third column is the amount that the NCDC has lowered each temperature.

Note that the annual average for 1921 has been lowered by 1.6°F. This lowering has the net effect of removing the year 1921 from its position as the warmest year on record in the US... as the Weather Bureau observed in several annual reports I cited earlier. The same pattern of lowering can be found in other years. I've checked 1934, 1938, 1940. All of the original Weather Bureau temperatures have been systematically changed and all have been lowered. The winter months have been lowered more the summer months...every time. It would be absurd to think that some sort of conspiracy has taken place but some plausible explanation should be available for this consistent trend.

Doug... Thanks. I did write to them, back on June 9th. So far, no reply. Maybe you can do better? But, if you do write be careful to ask which of their two averages one should use. There are two for each year... one can be derived from summing the individual states and averaging them as I did for the comparable individual Weather Bureau states. This average differs from their own 48 state average. They argue that the former should not be used because "a simple arithmetic mean is not appropriate". ?? The latter are more appropriate having been state re-weighted... Montana is bigger than Delaware? But, either way, both are consistently lower than the original "raw" weighted Weather Bureau values. More "up-to-date" but very confusing. Three different monthly averages for the year, each lower than the other?

I will try to learn from Meehl's (not Meehle) expertise but I'm a bit reluctant to simply accept the conclusions of a study that left out 50 years worth of record high monthly temperatures in 30 states... that's almost two-thirds of the contiguous US. Also, 80% of the record lows occurred before 1950... most in 1917. I've written to Dr. Meehl about why he chose to start his study in 1950.

Broadlands, again, you're not getting a very simple point here. At any temperature station record highs and lows will be distributed in a skewed way, with most appearing nearer to the -beginning- of the station history. You're also missing the notion that later records are more significant. The first record is automatic, the second a little less likely, etc. until once you're into decades of station history new records are both infrequent and represent more unusual excursions. Try setting up a thermometer in the shade at your house w/a tabula rasa record and record local record temperatures and the phenomenon will be easily visible.

As to Meehl's selection of the date range, the article is still in press so you're not likely to get a response of any kind until his paper has been published.

Meehl has quickly responded and sent me a copy of his paper, published last December. He wrote this: "We chose 1950 as the starting point because we needed a significant number of US stations with nearly continuous daily temperature measurements. Prior to 1950 the data quality falls off at many stations and there are a lot more missing daily temperatures thus making those stations not usable in our study."

The new NCDC and old Weather Bureau records are, of course, monthly with the yearly averages being derived from each. Meehl's co-author said this about their work: "But as the average temperatures continue to rise this century, we will keep setting more record highs." Why shouldn't that apply to the yearly averages derived from monthly data since the northern hemisphere has been rising?

Meehl has quickly responded and sent me a copy of his paper, published last December.

Whoops, I stand corrected! I could only find a preprint draft which actually did include the item you quoted, seemed better not to rely on that.

As to your last question, if this year is any indication (Moscow, Las Vegas, etc.) Meehl's coauthor seems to be remarking on something visible outside of their work. I can't speak for him but what I'd expect to see is that an overall change in temperature is not going to immediately emerge as a smoothly monotonic increase in global record highs thereby breaking average records year after year but in increasing frequency of excursions in various specific locales. As those point records aggregate and bulk up in relation to broader statistics I'd expect to see much slower movement in the yearly averages, often masked by variability. Taking for instance the case of Moscow we're seeing many contiguous days of temperatures some 25 degrees fahrenheit over norms, but these numbers being folded into a much larger collection of data then will of course in a single year only produce changes at a level of precision we don't look at. Given long enough these changes will work their way up through decimal places and emerge. That's exactly what we see in the global record, variability gradually moving upward.

This is something that's amenable to experimentation with a spreadsheet. Folks like Meehl will consider it all old hat but that does not mean you could not have fun with it all.

doug_bostrom at 08:39 AM, I agree that it is the frequency of excursions, rather than the magnitude of individual excursions that are more relevant. For that reason I feel the Quinn reconstruction of El-Nino events is important to put more recent excursions into perspective.

DOUG... "Given long enough these changes will work their way up through decimal places and emerge. That's exactly what we see in the global record, variability gradually moving upward."

But, IS that what we are really seeing, long-term... at least since ~1880? Before 1975 the highest northern hemisphere temperatures occurred in the late 30s, around 1938. Look at Fig. A.6 in the 1976 NAS report "Understanding Climate Change". In 1975 the "normal" zero reference temperature was 14.9°C; the 1938 anomaly was about +0.6. This makes the 1938 NH absolute temperature ~15.5°C (59.9°F). Compare the NAS Fig. A.6 with this chart based on similar data:

http://revolution2.us/content/docs/global_cooling/614-615.html

Even though 1975 is centered in the current 1961-1990 "normal" base period, the northern hemisphere reference "normal" today is lower by 0.3°C at 14.6°C (58.3°F). With the 2009 NH anomaly around +0.5°C this makes the 2009 NH average only 15.1°C (59.2°F). That is 0.4°C BELOW the measured 1938 highs.

Looks like in the ~50 years from 1885 to 1938 temperatures gradually rose, and then they gradually declined back to "normal" in the mid-70s before starting another gradual climb. It looks much more cyclical than the long, gradual upward climb depicted in current charts.

[BTW, 59.2°F for the NH in 2009 is more than SIX degrees warmer than the US in 2009 (52.9°F)]. Maybe Tom is right that the US record doesn't matter.]

Hopefully looking at the latest USHCN chart and data for US annual temperatures might be helpful and answer some of your questions:

It ranks 1934 as 3rd highest temperature after 1998 and 2006. As you know this data set has been analysed by researchers (and critics) over many years, and contains a number of corrections and updates, most significantly (from the point of view of older data), “time of observation” adjustments. The corrections are described quite well for version 1 and most recently for version 2 which is used for the chart. The data, fully corrected, time of observation only corrected, and raw, can be downloaded from here

PETER... The data have been corrected, homogenized, and re-corrected so much in so many ways that they are almost unrecognizable. Then, there are at least four sets of US temperatures:
(1) NCDC, All 48 states, summed, and averaged.
(2) NCDC, All 48 states, summed by regions, and averaged
(3) The 48 state averages re-weighted and averaged by NCDC.
(4) All 48 states, weighted, summed and averaged using the ORIGINAL US Weather Bureau monthly reports.

Comparing any of the first three with #4, ALL of them are LOWER than the values that were measured and weighted prior to ~1950. ALL of them show NCDC temperature departures for every month of every year that are almost twice as low in the winter months as in the summer months.

You point to 1934 as the third warmest year? The NCDC reported 1934 at 54.8°C. But, the ORIGINAL US Weather Bureau data for 1934 will show that it was 55.1°F, 0.3°F warmer. That puts 1934 in second place...record highs in 10 states. 1921 is in first place...record highs in 10 states.. all different states.. 1998 is third...record highs in 9 states, again all different from those in either 1921 or 1934.

Evidence? Read these excerpts from the 'raw' US Weather Bureau official reports:

"On the basis of weighted averages for the several sec-
tions, the year 1940 was normal as to mean temperature;
the value for the year was 53.6°, as compared with a mean
of 53.7° for the period 1891 to 1940, inclusive, and the
extremes of 55.6° in 1921 and 51.8° in 1917"

or this...

"On the basis of weighted averages the year 1941 was
practically normal in respect to mean temperature, the
departure being less than 1° above the mean value of 53.7°.
The extremes of temperature on the weighted basis were
55.6° in 1921, and 51.8° in 1917.

or this...

The mean temperature for the year 1942, derived by
weighting the averages for the varying areas of the several
States, was exactly normal, being 53.2°,or the same
as the average for the 1886 to 1942 period, during
which time the highest mean annual temperature was
55.6° in 1921 and the lowest, 51.8° in 1917.

Sorry, I did not notice Peter Hogarth's convenient links directly to fairly comprehensive descriptions that should answer Broadland's questions about how and why adjustments are made.

Apparently Broadlands also missed Peter's helpful links, leading him to form the erroneous conclusion that the data have been corrected, homogenized, and re-corrected so much in so many ways that they are almost unrecognizable.

Broadlands, before making a remark like that you really ought to go and find out where the truth lies. If you then have problems with what you read, why not specifically address those things that leave you feeling bothered?

For instance, are you bothered by corrections to remove UHI from the record? If so, why?

Using words like you do instead of learning more about your subject might lead somebody to form the wrong impression.

Earlier you remarked, It would be absurd to think that some sort of conspiracy has taken place but some plausible explanation should be available for this consistent trend.

Peter then did better than did I by providing you with specific pointers the information you asked for. Why not use it? You earlier remarked that your inquiry for information to NCDC had so far not enjoyed a reply. I can well imagine that staffers at NCDC might be frustrated by questions they've already gone to the trouble of answering.

Well, one point is, as I mentioned earlier, these changes alter the record years (1921 no longer the warmest). Then, the systematic lowering of the early years tends to increase the slope of the overall trend.

"For that matter, why are you pointing us to a scan of a National Geographic article from 1976 as some kind of authoritative source for temperature data?"

An NG article is, of course, not "peer-reviewed". But, if you will read the legend on that chart (just above 1920 to 1940) you should see that the chart is based on peer-reviewed publications... If you will look at the authoritative? National Academy of Sciences Fig A.6 (1975) you should see they are similar. If you will look at Budyko's Fig. 1 (1969) you should see that they are similar. This should provide substantiation for the overall trend up to 1976 shown in the NG article..

What your references have in common Broadlands is that they're all at least 34 years old.

You've not addressed the questions I asked about what you think is wrong with each of the specific corrections Peter Hogarth pointed you to.

Earlier you said, I believe you may have missed a point too... the NCDC-NOAA has systematically lowered the early Weather Bureau records."

That sounds really terrible on its face but it's not new information, the NCDC is quite open about what adjustments they do and why.

Then you said, "The winter months have been lowered more the summer months...every time. It would be absurd to think that some sort of conspiracy has taken place but some plausible explanation should be available for this consistent trend.

Indeed, and Peter Hogarth pointed you to answers, but you're still working from the perspective of mystification with regard to why those corrections are done.

If you have a problem with corrections and adjustments, be specific. Show how the meteorologists are wrong. Doubt is not an argument.

"What your references have in common Broadlands is that they're all at least 34 years old."

Doug... The fact that they are "at least 34 years old" should not change their values unidirectionally. Why should thermometers at least 34 years ago have measured higher temperatures most of which seem to have required lowering?

Some specific examples. According to NCDC 1895-2009 in North Carolina it was 60°F in 1900 and 59°F in 2009... the two are essentially the same. No statistical difference, no warming or cooling. A level trend for 114 years.

In 1921 it was 61°F in NC according to the NCDC and it was 61.0°F according to the US Weather Bureau's reports. Maybe a 0.1 degree difference... easily within expected variability.. No problem. No corrections?

BUT... in other states? Official weighted Weather Bureau data list Arizona in 1921 at 61.6°F and Idaho at 46.5°F. The NCDC 1895-2009? Arizona in 1921: 59.4°F, 2.2°F lower. Idaho in 1921: 44.9°F, 1.6°F lower. Were the thermometers in 1921 that bad in AZ and ID?

I will write again to NCDC.

BTW, do you know what the temperature of the northern hemisphere was in 2009?

Global warming is directly linked to only a few weather events and climate trends. One of them, however, is warming itself, which could make 2012 a watershed climate change year in the U.S. More than superstorms, wildfires, and devastating drought, this year’s record-smashing spring and summer heat waves, with their melted airport runways and warped steel rail lines, are more evidence that climate change is real.

Last week NOAA announced that 2012 was “likely” to be the warmest year on record in the 48 states, based on temperatures through November. At some point, however, likelihood turns into certainty. Does a warm December push the nation to the point where it is impossible for 2012 to be anything but the warmest year ever recorded in the U.S.?

To answer that question Climate Central did the math, and the results are in.

There is a 99.99999999 percent chance that 2012 will be the hottest year ever recorded in the continental 48 states, based on our analysis of 118 years of temperature records through Dec. 10, 2012.

1. where does it say land "mass"? It's surface area.2. What is the surface area of the Earth? Wiki says it's 510,072,000 km2. Now, what is the surface area of the 48 contiguous? Wiki says 8,080,464.3 km2. Divide one by the other. Maybe wiki is wrong, but I suspect that someone would have noticed by now.3. How many states were there in 1934?

To add to the existing answers from DSL, in response to scott's question "Why do you only use the 48 states ...?"

because the temperature of the contiguous US states (i.e. the USA excluding Alaska and Hawaii) is a temperature index widely used by US national meterological organizations, such as NOAA (the National Temperature Index).

It may be worth noting, 1934 was also the first year of te Dust Bowl, a human-asued natural disaster in the American Southwest. It seems likely the exteme heat in the continental US that year was, in some part, due to the destruction of grasslands and the immense dust storms. Barren land absorbs more heat than grasslands do.

Pointing out how hot 1934 was in the contiental US is a good way to stress the adverse effects of human activity on the climate and the weather.